Pros: Won Three Oscars. Brilliant, beautiful and creepy.
Cons: Not really Bram Stoker's.
The Bottom Line: This is a modern classic, well done, memorable, and infinitely rewatchable. Want to cool off? Watch this and enjoy the shiver down your spine.
Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Screenplay by Jack V. Hart,
There have been many vampire movies over the years, but periodically, we return to the source, Bram Stoker’s immortal epistolary classic. Some, like the first 1931 classic starring Bela Lugosi, adhere closely to the book, others, like the 1979 version starring Frank Langella are a little more liberal in their interpretation. (One could say ruinous)
From the first cello heavy strains of music, the tone of this movie is set; rich, dark, decadent. The opening sequence encompasses the history of Vlad Tepes, Viovode of Wallencia. Brutal, cruel, he defended his land and church. Wearing armour so tailored to resemble the red striations of muscle so that he looks flayed, he rides off to war. He is victorious, but the defeated Turks, out of spite, fired an arrow into the castle with a note proclaiming the army defeated, and Vlad, killed.
His wife, Elizabeta, believes the missive, and throws herself from the battlements to the river half a mile below. As a suicide, she is damned, and can not be buried on sacred ground. Vlad, outraged at this final blow on top his grief, renounces God and swears to return from the grave to wreak vengeance on the world forever. Thus did Vlad curse himself to walk the night as the undead.
Centuries later, young English solicitor Jonathon Harker is dispatched to Transylvania to complete the business transactions left undone by his predecessor, Mr. Renfield. Renfield has suffered a complete psychotic break, and the firm is placing high hopes on Mr. Harker to land the very lucrative account with Count Dracula. If Harker does, his future is assured, and he will have the money to marry his fiancée, Mina Murray.
What Harker finds is a land ruled by superstition where the customs he understands mean little, and where the very laws of nature are circumspect. The Count is an elderly man, strange and regal in an exotic way, but dangerously temperamental. Harker finds himself trapped in an ancient castle, surrounded by unexplainable phenomena, like shadows that move as they will, not as the Count does, and potions that drip upwards. He fears he is loosing his mind. Worse, the Count requires him to produce three letters stating his intentions to remain in Transylvania for a month. Harker feels these letters doom him.
Meanwhile, in England, Mina is the guest of her long time friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy is rich, and beautiful, and being courted by three men; a wealthy Texas rancher, Quincy P. Morris, Dr. Jack Seward, a psychiatrist, and incidentally, the keeper of Mr. Renfield, and Lord Arthur Holmwood. Mina and Lucy are quite atwitter over their respective romances, the only dark cloud being Jonathan’s absence, and the distant tone of his last letter.
Jonathan finds he is not alone in the castle with the Count. There are three beautiful women, and when they find him they seduce him, though their technique owes more to phlebotomy than fellatio. The Count leaves him to their nonexistent mercies.
In London, Mina meets a mysterious figure, Prince Vlad of Szekely. He seems familiar to him, and she is drawn to him, like a moth to flame. It is an interesting time for a young Victorian woman of the middle classes, living with her rich friend, engaged, seduced by an exotic noble from a far off land. The only fly in the ointment is her friend Lucy, who suffers a strange form of anemia that leaves her listless and drawn during the day and in heat in the evenings. She sleepwalks, and behaves inappropriately, both wanton and ill.
Seward, clearly out of his league, calls in his mentor, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. And Van Helsing, if socially grating, is sharp. He observes, and when a theory presents, no matter how unlikely, he pursues, like a True scientist. He thinks he knows what they are facing.
Meanwhile, Jonathan has no illusions that his succubi will drain the life from him. He gathers his strength, and makes a last ditch effort to escape. The nuns that find him and nurse him write at his behest, and he summons Mina to Transylvania to marry him, and take him home.
Thwarted, Dracula turns his full attentions to Mina, to her detriment. Can her loyal band of protectors save her? Will Mina find her man and marry him? And if she does, will she be able to forget the mysterious nobleman with whom she shared such a deep bond? And what of Dracula? Will he allow the works of mere mortals to thwart him in his desires?
The Cast
Gary Oldman ... Dracula
”Listen to them: the children of the night. What sweet music they make.”
A relic of a bygone age, a military genius, a murderous madman, Vlad was all these things in his own life. Four hundred years have not softened him any. Gary Oldman won the coveted Saturn award for his role as the count. His portrayal ranged, along with his make up, from the aristocratic, to the bestial. Prince and monster, victim and villain, he made it all believable.
Winona Ryder ... Mina Murray / Elisabeta
”Take me away from all this death!”
Sensible and strong, Mina is the object of Dracula’s obsession. She resembles his lost Elizabeta both is face and spirit. In many ways, Winona is the very soul of this movie. When she read the part, it was for a TV movie, and someone else was set to direct it. However, Winona saw the potential in the movie, and took it to Francis Ford Coppola and asked him to make it a movie. This may have been by way of apology for pulling out of Godfather III, but what ever the case, he agreed, and the rest is history.
Anthony Hopkins ... Professor Abraham Van Helsing
”Mr. Morris, your bullets will not harm him. He must be beheaded. I suggest that you use your big Bowie knife.”
Anthony Hopkins was nominated for the Saturn for best supporting actor. He certainly took Van Helsing in a different direction. Van Helsing is a scientist. However, he is also a mystic and possibly bipolar as well. He certainly can display remarkable insensitivity.
Mina Harker: How did Lucy die? Was she in great pain?
Professor Abraham Van Helsing: Yeah, she was in great pain! Then we cut off her head, and drove a stake through her heart, and burned it, and then she found peace.
Not exactly someone’s kindly grandfather, no? But a brilliant portrayal, and absolutely unforgettable.
Keanu Reeves ... Jonathan Harker
”The Count, the way he looked at Mina's picture fills me with dread. As if I have a part to play in a story that is not known to me.”
Jonathan is a polite well scrubbed fellow, reliable, and not too bright. Is it a brilliant performance, or brilliant casting? Who can say? People often say that Keanu is out of his league here. But read the book. Harker was a bit of a stick in the mud, and not the hero. I think Keanu was very convincing, if not stand out.
Richard E Cary Elwes ... Lord Arthur Holmwood
” I would watch my colonial tongue if I were you.” to Quincey.
Arthur is an arrogant stuffed shirt, but harmless. Elwes can of course do that. He could have phoned it in. I do not think the fault is with the actor, but the part. Remember (and this applies to Harker as well) Stoker was an Irish man. The Englishmen in this piece are not set off well. Harker is stolid, Holmwood arrogant, and Seward, squirrelly. The real men, Quincy and Van Helsing, are Texan and Dutch, respectively.
Bill Campbell ... Quincey P. Morris
” And may I say that Miss Lucy is hotter than a June bride riding bareback buck naked in the middle of the Sahara! ” to Holmwood.
Big blustering and bold, Quincey is one of Lucy’s suitors. Bill Campbell plays him right, making him the most macho thing around, but also tender and devoted to Lucy, and not afraid to show his feelings, unlike the repressed English.
Sadie Frost ... Lucy Westenra
”Lucy is a pure and virtuous girl, but I admit that her free way of speaking shocks me sometimes. Jonathan says it's a defect of the aristocracy that they say what they please. The truth is that I admire Lucy, and I'm not surprised that men flock around her. I wish I were as pretty and as adored as she.” Mina, about her friend.
That quote really sums the character. Sadie Frost was more than a little contrived in her portrayal, but so were the women of the age? Was it deliberate, and masterful, or poor acting that lucked into the role? I don’t know, but she is a lovely thing, at least until she dies. When she spits blood on Van Helsing, it is an obvious homage to “The Exorcist.”
Tom Waits ... R.M. Renfield
”I'm no lunatic man. I'm a sane man fighting for his soul.”
Mr. Renfield was Harker’s predecessor in Transylvania, and he came home with a taste for bugs. Vivophagephilia, the belief that one can draw life from living things is central to vampiric legend. Under utilized, Waits turns in a masterful performance.
Monica Bellucci ... Dracula's Bride
Michaela Bercu ... Dracula's Bride
Florina Kendrick ... Dracula's Bride
This trio is background decoration for the castle. They were VERY decorative, and their seduction of Harker upped the movies sex appeal a very good bit.
The Analysis
This movie is not really Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but that title was chosen to distinguish it from the original and the 1979 remake. Jerry Hart won the Saturn for best writing. That helps support my contention that while this is not Stoker’s Dracula, it was a good Dracula. One of the key and defining elements of this production were the effects and the visual. Coppola was determined not to go with CGI as he was urged; instead, he went with very simple very old tricks. The scene where the map is superimposed over Harker’s face was done by projecting it onto Keanu’s face and filming the scene. The shadows and phantasms in the sky were done with similar simple effects.
One of the things that most struck me were the segues. Early on, the scene is cut off by the spreading of a peacocks fan, and as the camera focuses in on one of the “Eyes” the scene fades so that the eye is now the train tunnel. The train then runs along the top of Harker’s journal, a very nice visual.
The shadows that move independent of their caster are another conceit of Coppola’s, and very simple to do. He drew on old folk lore; for instance, vampires don’t cast shadows in moonlight, cream sours in the presence of the supernatural, and determined that the laws of nature are warped by the presence of a vampire. Mice run on the ceilings, perfumes that drip up, and shadows that knock over inkwells and wither flowers are all just part of this.
Combine this take with the rich layered sumptuous cinematography, the use of candle light, the costuming, the dressing gowns with twenty foot trains, the Victorian dresses with the bustles, all weave together to create a very lush backdrop. Throw in a haunting soundtrack full of bass and sorrow, it creates a different world.
The story is lush as well. Dracula is both monster and sympathetic character, both creature and seducer, especially in the one scene in the garden. This dichotomy is important, and the way Mina reacts to it is well done. Vampires are about forbidden fruit. About sex and youth and having what you want without regard what it costs others.
As an action movie, this movie succeeds. As a horror movie this movie succeeds. As a drama, this movie succeeds. Taken all together, it is a masterpiece.
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